Frank's Musings

The cooptation of the Republican Party by disaffected solipsistic followers of Donald Trump and political careerists has deformed the American democracy’s role as a forum for making and enforcing common civic policy.  One party has been transformed into a nihilistic faction that contravenes the legitimacy of the very republic for which it was named.  Reducing reliance on the government for providing common social needs does not mean eliminating (or “defunding”) national or community organizations. 

The single term of the Trump presidency was enough to portend the nightmare of a nation-state that operates to satisfy the whims of a self-anointed dictator.  His self-defined and ignorant benevolence would have been the primary hope for achieving the common welfare.

If the Democratic Party is thought to espouse overbearing government-directed solutions to the republic’s problems, destruction of the government itself or rendering it irrelevant is not a solution.  Less burdensome resolution of society’s problems cannot be accomplished without an effective and competent common institution, the very goal of good government.  That is what our Constitution was created and amended to provide.  It won’t provide that unless those seeking to administer it are committed to using it.  That is the principle that conservative politicians must enshrine in a new Constitutional Party.  It could replace the Republican Party, which has been corrupted by the benighted followers of Donald Trump.   It would be a worthy alternative to the Democratic Party and may even inspire the Democrats to moderate some of their own extremists.